Contact Information

Languages Spoken

English
French

Academic Background

BaH in Psychology, Queen's University, 1999

MA in Theory, Culture and Politics, Trent University, 2004

PhD in Communication, Concordia University, 2009

Biography

My work centres the Study of Discourse, Politics and Identity; I track flows of discourse as they move in and out of the public sphere influencing both individual and group identities, embodiments and politics (both within cultural groupings and between those groups and the larger structures of society).

Specifically, my research addresses topics such as digital intimacies, the relationship of intimacy and privilege, hybridity and mixed-race identities, the social and cultural aspects new media forms, and non/monogamy in the public sphere. It is situated disciplinarily at the nexus of communication and cultural studies, methodologically within discourse analysis, and draws theoretical energy from a wide range of sources such as feminist, queer, postcolonial and critical race theories; semiotics, affect theory, event theory and psychoanalysis; and other post-structuralist work.

I have recently completed a two-year FQRSC postdoctoral research project entitled “Postcoloniality and Privilege in the Hybrid Subject: Mixed-Race Identity and Intimate Privilege in Theory and Popular Discourse” that explores the discursive investments of figures of “hybridity” in the public sphere with a particular focus on how mixed-race identities are framed and discussed in our shared discursive spaces.

I am also currently finalizing a book project prospectively titled Non-Monogamies in the Public Sphere: Intimacy, Privilege and the Space of Discourse (forthcoming, UBC Press). Based on my dissertation work, but extending beyond it to discuss ongoing public sphere debates, the book uses discourse analysis to unpack recent Western conceptions of non-monogamy. By exploring the privileged logics that frame our conceptions of intimacy, I explore the political and cultural implications of how we frame non-monogamy broadly in sexual discourse, as well as how the public sphere presences of three major forms of non-monogamy (adultery, polygamy and polyamory) display a complex relationship with “intimate privilege,” an emergent state in which one’s intimacies are read as viable, ethical or even real. I have recently started work towards an edited collection about Hashtag Publics.